


wake-up call

by bonebo



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: can be McReyes if u want it to, nothing suggestive tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 14:37:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7980220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonebo/pseuds/bonebo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>'I love you'--as we huddle together, the storm raging outside</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	wake-up call

There are times when Gabriel forgets just how young Jesse is.

When the squad meets back at the base to celebrate a successful mission, and he’s got McCree at his right hand and the rest of Blackwatch all around him, and everything is blurred by booze and high spirits; he buys another round of drinks for the squad and _of course_ that includes Jesse, how could it _not_ include Jesse? He’s one of them just as sure as the sun rises in the east, and when they're all fighting just for the chance to see tomorrow it doesn’t really matter that he won't hit legal drinking age for another four months.

When he watches the kid out on the shooting range, nailing target after target with Peacekeeper like he’s been doing it for decades--all he can see is the ease that McCree adopts his stance with, the practiced way his muscles roll with the recoil of every bullet, and he finds himself too impressed with the kid to stop and wonder how Jesse mastered that finesse in under five years.

Not that it really matters.

Because every time that Gabriel gets used to seeing him as mature, confident, ready for anything--all things that, unfortunately, Jesse McCree is _not_ \--life has to come along and smack him in the mouth with a heavy dose of reality.

The reality is this--the mission had been a _disaster_. They’d gone in a squad of five, and between the landmines underfoot and the snipers overhead, the machine guns in the hands of the terrorists they fought, they emerged as the bloodied duo of Reyes and McCree, the only two left.

And when the dust is finally settled and Gabriel has a moment to _breathe_ , he looks over to see Jesse leaning against a wall and staring down at one of the corpses, at the ragged hole blown into the terrorist’s head and the jagged white of his skull; and the look on Jesse’s face is something not mature nor confident, something raw with fear and shock and the emotions that Gabriel was stupid to think Jesse was too hardened to experience anymore.

Thunder rolls outside, and Gabriel notices Jesse’s hands snap into fists.

“McCree,” he calls, voice a shade softer than his usual bark; it still startles the kid enough to make him flinch, and when he finally tears his gaze over there’s a panic in Jesse’s eyes that makes them almost black, something small and scared and enough to make Gabriel’s heart ache.

Jesse swallows, stiffly steps away from the corpse, like he’s afraid it’s going to reach out and grab him. “...Commander?”

Gabriel sighs, shakes his head, leans against the thin wall and listens to the rain begin to fall on the tin roof overhead--a monotonous drone of sharp noise that almost mimics the gunfire from earlier. Fitting.

“C’mere, kid.”

And it’s like opening a dam--a heartbeat’s pause and Jesse bolts forward, throwing himself at Gabriel and almost taking him to the ground with the force behind his hug. The grip he puts on Gabriel’s chest is near-suffocating; something desperate, something _needy_ in a way the kid tries his damnedest to avoid being. Jesse’s quivering in his arms like he might shake apart, and Gabriel wraps him up as tight as he can, settling his fingers in McCree’s tangled hair and holding him close.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, voice hoarse and aching because it’s not okay, it’s nowhere near okay, it won’t be okay until this world is at peace and by now Gabriel knows that’s a far-off dream. Sometimes he thinks saving Jesse from jail just to put him through this hell is the worst decision he’s ever made. “It’s okay, kid--I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Jesse nods frantically against Gabriel’s neck, shoulders starting to hitch--and Gabriel sighs again, knits his fingers tighter in messy brown locks.

“Jesse, no...don’t cry.” He pulls back enough to cup Jesse’s face in his hands, and presses a soft kiss between those watery eyes, holding the kid’s gaze as he continues, “Don’t cry. I’ve got you...I love you, Jesse. Don’t cry.”

Jesse’s breath catches and he clings to Gabriel again, hiding his face against the Commander’s bloodied body armor; outside, the storm rages on. But here, huddled close and locked inside the warmth of Gabriel’s arms, Jesse knows he is safe.


End file.
